The week Noah went missing, a banana bread and a focaccia.

That’s Noah. Noah the rascal, as I like to call him these days. Or Jagger, as they named him at the shelter, where I went to pick him up. Here is the full story of what happened this week. Let me start by saying that we always regarded Noah as less than brilliant. Noah is an indoors rabbit, as we never had a garden of even balcony, since the day we brought him home, three years ago. We let him roam around the house and once he chewed all our cables, we realized he needs a playpen. So once we moved in Schiedam, we thought it would be a great idea to put his playpen out in the garden and let him enjoy the premature Spring a few hours every day. We have been doing that for about a week, occasionally checking on him. Most of the time he was just hopping around happily or taking naps with his eyes open, the way rabbits do some times.

So this past Monday I decided to go for a walk with a friend and leave him outside, since the weather was so nice and he never made any attempts to escape. Once I came back with my friend, Noah was missing and it was obvious that he had dug the ground and escaped. I was sure we would never find him, as there are a couple of cats running around and there is also a parking area really close to the garden. However, I made mini “Missing” posters in Dutch (using google translate and common linguistic sense) and N. printed them and we put them all around out building complex, as all the little gardens meet in one, unified area with grass and trees.

On Tuesday morning N. woke up around 6:30 and went to check under all the cars in the parking area, in case Noah was hiding there. He wasn’t. At 8:30 we left the house and found the municipality gardeners, so we thought we should let them know our rabbit was missing. They said they had seen and caught him the day before and they gave him to a neighbor, who had a cage and said the rabbit was their daughter’s. From that point on, I thought Noah was kidnapped and the old lady had given him to her grandchildren or something. My suspicions were intensified due to the fact that we could not find her at home. The two municipality gardeners who had caught Noah felt responsible for trusting this lady, so they were extra helpful, coming with me at all times and speaking Dutch to the neighbors, explaining the situation.

The adventurer.

Long story short, I found the lady at some point and what she told the gardeners was that her daughter has rabbits, so she knows how to take care of him. She never said that the rabbit belonged to her daughter. Anyway, her daughter took him to the closest shelter, because they thought he was abandoned, and the shelter sent him to a special shelter for rabbits, guinea pigs and chinchillas. The old lady who never introduced herself gave me the number of shelter number one and I managed to locate Noah in the end.

The shelter was in the middle of nowhere, about 40 minutes from Schiedam, accessible by metro and then bus and then a bit of walking in the fields. But the important thing is they had Noah. So he is back with us now. And the shelter was really organized, with a great number of volunteers and the cages were really clean. Plus, Noah was in his temporary cage on his own, so we probably don’t have to worry about mites, but we will keep an eye on him anyway.

He is fluffy. That’s why he got away with it.

The Banana-Blueberry Bread

Since I was quite frustrated with the whole Noah situation, I did a bit of baking to relax. There are many easy vegan banana bread recipes out there, but as usual, I tweaked a basic recipe to my liking. Here is how my finished banana bread looked:

Tasty and messy and healthy and moist.

And here is how I made it.

Ingredients

1 cup oats, blended to become flour-like

1/2 cup mixed nuts also blended until almost powdered

1 cup self-rising flour

3 ripe bananas mashed

100 ml almond milk

100 ml olive oil

100 grams brown sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 cup blueberries

Instructions

Preheat the oven at 200 C.

In a large bowl mix the ground nuts, oats, flour and baking powder.

In another bowl mix the sugar, olive oil, bananas and almond milk.

Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well.

Line a tin loaf baking pan with baking paper. Wet the baking paper, so that it takes the form of the tin easier.

Pour the dough into the baking pan and arrange the blueberries on top.

Bake for about 25-30 minutes. If after the first 15 minutes the top seems to brown to quickly, cover with foil.

Enjoy warm or cool.

The banana bread before baking.

And after baking. A bad picture. As usual.

It lasted less than 24 hours.

The Vegan Focaccia

I love yeast. I love the way it froths and the way it smells and I am always eager to try foods that contain it. Yesterday I decided to try and make a focaccia. It turned out quite good, but a bit oily, as I over-oiled the baking pan. An easy mistake to avoid next time though.

My first attempt. Not too bad, if I may say so myself.

Ingredients

1 cup warm water

2 teaspoons instant dry yeast

2 teaspoons brown sugar

4 cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon salt

a tablespoon olive oil

some more olive oil, to grease the pan

1 tablespoon oregano and dill or other herbs of your choice

1 onion, chopped up

4-5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

Instructions

In a bowl mix the warm water with the sugar and yeast and let it froth for 10 minutes in a warm place.

Add in the bowl the olive oil, salt and flour s-l-o-w-l-y. You might not need all the flour. You need just enough to make a somewhat sticky dough, that separates from the sides of the bowl.

Put the dough in a well oiled bowl and let it rise, covered with a towel, in a warm place, for 1 1/2 hours.

Punch the air out of the dough and oil your baking pan. Put the dough in the baking pan and use your hands to shape it into whatever shape your baking pan has.

Let it rise once more, for 40 minutes, covered with a towel.

Preheat the oven at 200 C.

Brush the surface of the focaccia with a little bit of olive oil and sprinkle with the oregano and dill.

Add the onions and garlic slices on top.

Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden and let it cool before you cut it.

That’s how the focaccia looked before going in the oven.

And that’s how much I ate. It looks like one serving, no?

And that’s how the bottom looked. That’s the part that ended up being too oily, as it absorbed most of the olive oil of the baking pan.